Poems (Jordan)/"Thou Shalt Not"
"THOU SHALT NOT"
Who hides 'neath silent lips one helpful word;
Who folds his hands when cries for aid are heard;
Who steels his heart before a brother's woe,
Withholding sympathy he might bestow;
Who rests content with his own plenteous store,
Deaf to the voice of want outside his door,
In God's pure sight a thief becomes, for he
Holds back from all Life's blessed ministry.
Who folds his hands when cries for aid are heard;
Who steels his heart before a brother's woe,
Withholding sympathy he might bestow;
Who rests content with his own plenteous store,
Deaf to the voice of want outside his door,
In God's pure sight a thief becomes, for he
Holds back from all Life's blessed ministry.
Who, by a word, hope in some heart has slain;
Who by his act occasions needless pain;
Who with contemptuous manner dares to deal
A blow to aspirations, grand and real,
Who wilily doth seek to entice all
The best in any life unto its fall,—
By bringing thus to naught those things which were,
He of the best in man is murderer.
Who by his act occasions needless pain;
Who with contemptuous manner dares to deal
A blow to aspirations, grand and real,
Who wilily doth seek to entice all
The best in any life unto its fall,—
By bringing thus to naught those things which were,
He of the best in man is murderer.
The one great sin is merely holding back
From other lives, what would supply their lack;
The other takes what other lives possess
To be consumed of its own greediness,—
Ah, yes, and not content with this vile deed,
Doth make the heart of things bereft to bleed,
Itself away,—for with weapons unseen
It takes the life of things which would have been!
From other lives, what would supply their lack;
The other takes what other lives possess
To be consumed of its own greediness,—
Ah, yes, and not content with this vile deed,
Doth make the heart of things bereft to bleed,
Itself away,—for with weapons unseen
It takes the life of things which would have been!